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They know that jealousy is not some kind of game from Atari. Meantime, who is kidding whom? If all those wonderful scientists in Japan could manufacture an artificial brain cell only one–fourth a cubic inch, for an artificial brain you’d need to keep it in a warehouse one and a half million cubic feet so you could hide it from your neighbor, Mrs. Briskin, and assure her nothing funny’s going on next door. Besides, I dream the future, Atkins. What computer that you know could do that?”
    “You’ve eliminated Mannix?”
    “I don’t mean I dream the general, predictable future. I dream what you never could guess. Not just me. Read Experiment with Time, J. W. Dunne. Also Jung the psychiatrist and Wolfgang Pauli, his bigshot quantum physicist buddy that they call now the father of the neutrino. You could buy a used car from such people, Atkins. As for Mannix, he’s the father of seven, a saint, and I’ve known him for eighteen years. Forget it. What’s peculiar–on my mind–is that Stedman didn’t notice any sign that maybe Kintry first was hit on the head. With what was done to him, how could this be? He was conscious. My God, he was conscious.” Kinderman looked down and shook his head. “‘We must be looking for more than one monster, Atkins. Someone had to hold him down. It had to be.”
    The telephone rang. Kinderman looked at the buttons. The private line. He picked up the phone and said, “Kinderman.”
    “Bill?” It was his wife.
    “Oh, it’s you, honey. Tell me, how is Richmond? You’re still there?”
    “Yes, we just saw the Capitol Building. It’s white.”
    “How exciting.”
    “How’s your day, honey?”
    “Wonderful, sweetheart. Three murders, four rapes and a suicide. Otherwise, my usual jolly time up here with the boys at Precinct Six. Sweetheart, when is the carp coming out of the tub?”
    “I can’t talk now.”
    “Oh, I see. Then the Mother of the Gracchi is at hand. Mother Mystery. She’s squeezed in the booth with you, right?”
    “I can’t talk. You’re coming home tonight for dinner or not?”
    “I think not, precious angel.”
    “Then lunch? You don’t eat right when I’m not there. We could start back now–we’d be home by two.”
    “Thank you, darling, but today I have to cheer up Father Dyer.”
    “What’s the matter?”
    “Every year on this day he gets blue.”
    “Oh, it’s today.”
    “It’s today.”
    “I’d forgotten.”
    Two policemen were dragging a suspect through the room. He was forcibly resisting and screaming imprecations. “I didn’t do it! Let go of me, you cocksucking fucks!”
    “What’s that?” asked Kinderman’s wife.
    “Only goyim, sweetheart. Never mind.” A room door slammed on the suspect. “I’ll take Dyer to a movie. We’ll discuss. He’ll enjoy.”
    “Well, okay. I’ll fix a plate up and put it in the oven, just in case.”
    “You’re a sweetheart. Oh, incidentally, lock the windows tonight.”
    “What for?”
    “It would make me feel better. Hugs and kisses, darling dumpling.”
    “You, too.”
    “Leave a note about the carp, would you, sweetheart? I don’t want to walk in there and see it.”
    “Oh, Bill!”
    “Bye, darling.”
    “Bye.”
    He hung up the phone and stood up. Atkins was staring at him. “The carp is none of your business,” the detective told him. “It should only concern you that something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” He moved toward the door. “You have much to do, so kindly do it. As for me, from two until half past four I’m at the Biograph Cinema. After that, I’m at Clyde’s or back here. Let me know when there’s something from the lab. Anything. Beep me. Goodbye, Lord Jim. Enjoy your luxury cruise on the Patna. Check for leaks.”
    He walked through the doorway and into the world of men who die. Atkins watched him as he shuffled through the squad room waving off questions like beggars in a Bombay street. And then he was down the stairs and out of sight. Already